Strange Visitor
by EvilReceptionistOfDoom
Summary: A Jedi fetches a high price in a galaxy ruled by the Empire.  This one has been running since Order 66... but his luck is running out.
1. In the Yard

We were playing in the yard when Jan suddenly froze, toy tanks in mid-crash, and stared at the wavering horizon. I followed his gaze. There, coming towards us through the shimmering heat, was a person. I frowned. We watched in silence for several minutes as the figure came closer, stumbling slightly. "Annika," Jan whispered, "where is that person coming from? Mos Dega is in the complete opposite direction, and so's Mos Eisley. There's nothing that direction but Sand People and Jawas."

"Well," I mused, "it's too tall for a Jawa..."

"Which means it's a Sand Person."

"Not necessarily," I said. Jan was terrified of the Tuskan Raiders, especially since they'd killed our old slave Milo the past month, and I didn't want him getting worked up about this. And anyhow, so far as I could tell by the heat-warped silhouette moving slowly towards us, this was no Sand Person. I told Jan this. He said nothing; he just sat there, on hands and knees with a miniature battle tank in one hand, watching the visitor's approach intently.

The person stumbled again, took a few steps, and collapsed. He or she did not rise, and I felt a sudden urgency. "Jan," I said, "go in and get Dad." He looked at me but did not move. "GO!" I said, and ran for the stranger. He hurried inside as I skidded to a halt in the sand next to the new arrival.

It was a young man, lying face down, his hair and foreign clothes turned sandy from the desert dust. There were what looked like burns in his back, and when I rolled him over I found dozens more sprayed across his upper half, and a couple on his right leg. Blaster wounds. He looked dead, or nearly so, but I could still hear breathing. "Jan!" I screamed. "Dad! Mum! Come quickly!" I lifted the man's head and tried to shake him awake, but he did not stir.

Then Dad came running up, sucking in his breath when he saw why I'd called him. "Annika," he barked, "go into town and get Zola. Take the landspeeder. Jan, you too. Go! Now, hurry!"

We ran for the old speeder and jumped in. Though I was only fourteen, I had been driving it since I was eight - Jan, at ten, was already proficient enough to run errands. He would watch the vehicle while I was in the doctor's office to make sure it wasn't stolen.

It was a ten minute trip into Mos Dega, and we passed it in silence. When we arrived, I jumped out before the speeder was even stopped, shouting at Jan, "Stay there!" Doctor Zola was the only physician for fifty miles, and when I burst into his office, I nearly crashed into him heading out the door with his medical bag.

"Doctor Zola!" I gasped, "There's an emergency! It's a man - blaster fire - severely burned-"

The doctor's face lit up. "Blaster fire?" he asked, excited. "I'll come at once! Let me get my things!" He ran into the back room and reemerged with a new, larger bag. "Come on! No time to lose!"

We hurried to the speeder and I raced back to the farm. The whole time Zola babbled on about how exhilarating it would be to treat a blaster injury again. "You can't imagine how boring it is out here," he said, "treating farming accidents and the occasional Tuskan Raid victim. Oh, I haven't had a real war wound in - in I don't know how many years..." His eyes glazed over and he faded off, no doubt remembering days as a young cadet in the Republic Medical Corps, treating soldiers during the Clone Wars. Doctor Zola really wasn't that old, but years in the desert had weathered his face so he looked ten years older that he really was. I wondered briefly what he'd used to look like. Then we were at the house, and running inside.


	2. Zola Operates

Dad had put the man on the kitchen table; he was bare from the waist up and Mum was cutting off the lower right leg of his trousers with a pair of shears to reveal his wounded knee. There were bits of charred fabric stuck to the burns, and a lot of blood.

"Move back!" Zola commanded, stepping forward with his medical bag open and ready. He directed Mum to get some hot water, and set to work. For what seemed like an eternity we stood back, watching him, afraid to talk for fear we might distract him and too tense go somewhere else. He made Mum his nurse. She handed him tool after tool, fetching materials from the cupboards and doing what the doctor said without remark. Finally Zola stepped back, a bright smile on his face, and wiped his blood-stained hands on his coat. "All done!" he said triumphantly. "He's going to live."

"Is he human?" Mum asked nervously.

"Oh yes, most definitely. You say he just appeared out of the desert?"

"The children found him," Dad said. "Coming from the northwest."

"That's odd." Zola frowned. "There's nothing in that direction for three hundred miles but desert. And he didn't have any identification on him?"

"No," said Mum. "Just a blaster, twenty-three credits, and this-" She handed him a metal cylinder, about a foot long and an inch and a half in diameter, with a few switches on it. "I don't suppose you know what it is...?"

The doctor's eyes got very large, and he took it from her with something approaching reverence. "Do you know what this is?!" he asked, voice soft and low with awe.

"We just said-" Dad started, but Zola didn't let him finish.

"This is a lightsaber!" the doctor said. "The weapon of a Jedi knight!"

My parents stared at him. Finally Dad said, "That can't be. The Jedi were wiped out years ago."

"Some might have survived," Zola persisted. "Besides," he added, "where else would this man have gotten such a weapon?"

"In a pawn shop."

Zola rolled his eyes and made an exasperated sound. "Think now. If you were a criminal trying to avoid the Empire, where would be a good place to hide? Where better than Tatooine, where we don't even get the news from the Core until a year after it's happened? Don't you think if there were still a Jedi hiding somewhere, it would be here?" My parents thought about that, and I could tell by their expressions that they could see his reasoning.

I was thinking on this myself. We had learned about the Jedi in school, separatists who used strange forces to control people's minds and worse, and who had tried to destroy the Republic long ago. That was when Lord Vader and the illustrious Emperor had defeated them, preventing a terrible war and protecting the people of the galaxy with a firm ruling body. They had been destroyed, hunted down one by one until there were none left. Most of the kids at school - myself included - thought they were a myth, invented by the government to scare us and to illustrate why such a firm hand was needed to guide the galaxy. Never had I thought such people might actually exist! And yet, if the doctor was to be believed, here one was.

"How long before he wakes up?" asked Dad.

"Not long," the doctor assured him. "Jedi have higher stamina than normal people, so he should come to pretty quickly here."

As if to prove Doctor Zola correct, the man's eyelids fluttered and he sat up suddenly, looking about in startled confusion. "What-? Where am I?" he asked, eyes wide and fearful.

"I'm Johan Rand. You're in my house on Tatooine. My kids found you in the desert and Dr. Zola here patched you up," said Dad.

"Why- I'm- thank you," the man stuttered. "I- I have some money. If it won't cover the doctor's bill-"

"Oh, no," Zola said quickly, "no bill. Consider it a favor."

The man looked at him gratefully, then turned to Mum and Dad. "Still, for your kindness, I would like you to take the money. It's not much, but it's the least I can do to repay your hospitality. I'd give you my blaster as well, though it doesn't work; you could probably get something for it as scrap at least." He stood, then suddenly realised that he was naked from the waist up. He looked sheepishly at my parents. "My clothes-?" he asked uncertainly. Mum pointed at the little pile on the kitchen counter. She didn't smile as he nodded his thanks and hastily dressed. I could tell she didn't like him, and I had a feeling why.

As he put on his belt the stranger suddenly stopped, and looked around, frowning, as though missing something. He shook out his coat, to no avail, and Mum asked, suspiciously, "Lose something?"

"What?" he replied, clearly distraught. "No... It must have fallen out when I was running..."

"What from?"

He turned. "What are you talking about?"

"What were you running from? Or better, who?"

He stared at her blankly for several seconds, then said, "Well... bounty hunters, actually. Three of them; that's who shot me up. But you needn't worry. They won't be following me. You're quite safe."

"You killed them?" Mum asked dryly.

"Well- yes."

Mum's lips curled upward in a sly, triumphant smile. "With a broken blaster?"


	3. A Change of Station

He opened his mouth, but said nothing and closed it again. He knew she had him there. He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and confessed, "Okay, I did have another weapon. But it's lost now. It's a metal cylinder, about yea long, this thick around-" he held his hands about a foot apart, then made a circle with his thumb and forefinger to demonstrate. "If you find it- well, I don't have anything but what you see, but it has a lot of- sentimental value for me, and- I'd really like to have it back," he said, choosing his words carefully. But before he could say anything else, Zola stopped him.

"Do you mean something like this?" he asked, producing the lightsaber with an unsurpressed grin. The stranger's eyes lit up, and he nodded vigourously. "Yes, yes, that's the one! Oh, thank you, I don't know how I'll ever repay you-"  
"Not so fast!" said the doctor. "Who said I was giving it back to you? Consider it your treatment fee."

The stranger's mouth fell open in disbelief, but he immediately snapped it shut, saying, "Of course. You did save my life," but looking as though Zola'd just killed his dog. "Well, I really should be going now," he said, trying to hide his dismay. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done for me. If there's any way I can thank you-" He stood, putting his coat on, and moved towards the door.

I knew Mum had always been a great fan of the Empire, so it didn't surprise me that she'd become so hostile to this man as soon as she'd found out that he might be a Jedi. Now she blocked the stranger's way, and icily commanded him to sit back down. No pretense of civility remained in her voice any longer. "You're not going anywhere, Jedi scum. Because that is what you are, isn't it? A Jedi?"

He froze, astonished, then frowned. "It's of no consequence. Please step aside - the sooner I'm off the planet, the better - for your own sakes as well as my own. I've done you no wrong. If it's credits you want, I'll send some along once I earn them. Now, please, Ma'am-"

Mum looked at him with the sort of contempt with which I'd seen her regard the smugglers and bounty hunters in Mos Dega. "Credits?" she said. "Yes. I think the Empire's price on a Jedi was eight million last I looked. That would be enough for us to retire in the Core and live comfortably for many years, not to mention the prestige I'd get for apprehending a dangerous criminal."

He stared at her in utter disbelief, sitting down hard. After almost a minute he said, "You don't want to turn me in to the Empire."

"Is that a threat? You don't seem to be in much of a position to be giving me orders."

He said, "That wasn't a threat, it was an appeal to your sense of decency! If the Empire gets ahold of me, they'll kill me, and it won't be swift, and it won't be painless. I was defeated long ago; I'm no longer a threat to their designs. I'm just a homeless human with only the clothes on my back, and what little dignity I still posess, and my life. These are things I value greatly, things I don't want to lose. Please, Mrs. Rand, I'll do anything you ask, just don't give me to them." He looked up at Mum with such pain and earnestness- I found myself suddenly feeling so sad for him that I couldn't not interfere.

I tapped on Mum's shoulder. "What is it, Annika?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

I replied timidly - Mum's scary when she gets like this. "Perhaps- perhaps he could work it off," I suggested, thinking how stupid I sounded.

"Yes, honey," said Dad, surprising both of us. Dad's more easygoing than Mum, and he tended to agree with her and go along with her decisions. But here he seemed to like my idea better than hers. "We were going to buy a new slave anyhow, since the Tuskans got Milo - this will save us the trouble. What have we got to lose?" Seeing Mum's expression, he added in a quieter voice, "We can always collect the bounty later."

You could see the wheels turning in Mum's head. Finally she went over to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the metal slaves' collar we'd pulled off Milo's corpse less than a month earlier. She took out the remote control that went with it and unfastened the clasp. Then she turned to the young man. "Are you willing to sacrifice your freedom to save your life, Jedi?"

He only nodded. I could tell that response pleased Mum immensely.

"All right then," she said. He held his unruly hair out of the way while she snapped the collar on around his neck. Then she stood back and held up the remote. "This controls the collar," she explained. "It has a range of at least 600 miles. Now, when I press this button" - she did, and the young man flinched, caught off guard - "the unit administers an electric shock of varying intensity. That's the lowest setting. At the highest - which I will use if you violate our bargain and attempt to escape - it's fatal. Understand?" He nodded. "Good. Now, there's a whole garage full of equipment that needs polishing, but before you go, I assume you have a name?"

"Yes. It's Evan," he replied, rising.

"That way," said Mum, pointing to the door to the garage. Evan went towards it. "Wait." He stopped, and turned. "One last thing," said Mum, "if you try to pull anything - anything at all - you're going straight to Vader, understand? I'll be watching you."

He nodded again, expressionless, and went into the garage without saying a word. I wondered what he was thinking, whether he was plotting to kill us as we slept, or maybe just hating himself for letting this happen. Maybe he was wishing he'd killed us already. Maybe he was wondering if he was a coward. I was wondering that - wondering what constitutes cowardice. What would I have done in his situation? I couldn't imagine. I couldn't put myself in his shoes. He'd gone from knight to serf in one fell swoop, and that had to smart. But probably he was just biding his time until he could escape... I just hoped that escape didn't involve the deaths of my parents, or my brother, or myself. Because then it would be my fault.


	4. Questions Answered

We got used to life with Evan. He did everything Mum told him to do without comment, as soon as she told him, and he did it perfectly. Mum got frustrated, and refused to adknowledge his otherworldly obedience, instead heaping ever more and ever harder tasks upon him, and giving him all sorts of crap, but he never once complained. I'm a light sleeper, and I would wake when he went to bed in the garage each night, never earlier than 1 am, and often past 3. Then Mum had him getting up at five to fix breakfast - he wasn't a bad cook - and start the moisture collectors. I never once saw him eat, and the little sleep he did get was on an old seat Dad had pulled from the back of a totaled speeder. Yet never once did I hear a grumble or whine from him; indeed, he hardly spoke at all, especially when Mum was around. I didn't know what to think of him. None of us did.

This went on for week after week, stringing into months, and finally one day while Evan was outside repairing the moisture collectors (as it seemed he was so frequently doing) on a particularly hot day, I went outside and sat on the sand and watched him. He smiled when he noticed me and said, "You must be very bored, Annika, to want to watch me fix computer equipment."

I smiled and said, "I _am_ bored." Then, "How old are you, Evan?"

"Thirty-eight," he said.

I was surprised. "You don't look that old."

He laughed. "Don't I? How old did you think I was?"

"Twenty-something," I said. "Is it because you're a Jedi?"

"You mean is that why I look younger than I am? I don't know. The Force can change a person, it's true. I knew a great Jedi master who was over eight hundred years old - but he was not human. I don't know, Annika. Perhaps I just have good genes."

"Are you human?"

"Yes."

I watched him fiddling with the computer banks for a few minutes before I gave my curiousity voice once more. "Why were those bounty hunters after you?"

"You know why. The Empire offers an eight million credit reward for a live Jedi. That's enough incentive for just about anyone."

"Are you angry with Mum for doing this to you?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "No," he said. "I understand her reasoning. Eight million credits is a lot of money."

"Do you think you're worth that much?"

He laughed again, but did not give more answer than that. We were silent. He moved on to the next collector. I followed.

"Evan," I asked, "do you have any family?"

He stopped walking. For several moments he stared into the hazy heat before, without looking at me, he said quietly, "No," and started walking again.

I was too interested now to stop myself. Without thinking for a second how incredibly rude and heartless I was being, I trotted after him and pressed, "Did they die?"

"Yes, Annika, they died."

"How?"

"The Empire killed them."

We had reached the next collector. He pulled a spanner from his belt and began to loosen the bolts on the control panel. "Tell me about it," I said eagerly.

He did not respond.

I did something then which I am ashamed of to this day. I was too old to be behaving like a spoiled, petulant child, but that was nonetheless what I did. "Tell me or I'll tell Mum you tried to run away, and you know what'll happen then..."

He sighed, set down the spanner, and turned to me. He suddenly looked much older, his face creased as if in pain. "When the Jedi were betrayed sixteen years ago, I had rejected them because a Jedi is not allowed to marry, and I loved a woman too much to abandon her. I chose her over knighthood, and we had been married just two years when the Republic ceased to be. We had a daughter, and my wife was five months pregnant. We thought I was safe because I was no longer a Jedi, but the newly formed Empire still considered me a knight. After I narrowly avoided being arrested for my Jedi affiliations, my wife and I agreed that it wasn't safe for me to stay on Alderaan with her, so I went elsewhere to lay low for a while." He sighed again and took a deep, shaky breath. "When I came back two months later, I found my home had been razed and my wife and daughter murdered by the Empire's secret police. They couldn't get to me, so they destroyed those closest to me. My second child was never born. After that I fled, and I have been running ever since, staying only a step or two ahead of the bounty hunters and the Empire and, thanks to the large reward for my capture, everyday people as well. But I feel it is my responsibility to my wife and my children to stay alive, because someday I will be able to make known what the Empire did, and perhaps bring justice to them. And maybe when the war is over I can go back to Alderaan and make a new life. I have a cousin and an aunt still alive there, and a brother-in-law and his family, or at least I did when I left. Someday I hope to see them again." He faded off, looking misty-eyed into the distance. I thought for a moment he might cry, but he seemed to shake himself and looked at me again. "Does that answer your question, Annika?"

I nodded, feeling suddenly wretched. He went back to his repairs. I stood there for a moment, staring at his back, before I finally blurted, "I'm sorry, Evan, I shouldn't have made you tell me that. I'm so sorry about your family. ...You're not mad at me, are you?"

"No," he replied.

"Honest?"

"Honest. I'm not angry with you."

I didn't quite believe him, but I said, "Okay." I waited around awkwardly for a few moments, and then I turned and headed back towards the house. After two steps I stopped. "See you later, Evan."

"You too. Don't get into trouble."

"I won't." But I thought, I already have.


	5. Breakdown

After that I tried to be nicer to Evan. His kindness towards me did not lessen, and I gradually came to believe what he had said - that he held no grudge against myself or my family. Quite the contrary - though he remained as laconic as ever, I almost felt we had become friends. Mum still watched him like a hawk, waiting for him to slip up. She berated him ceaselessly for no apparent reason other than her basic dislike of "his kind", as she put it like a bad taste in her mouth. Dad seemed to notice - I think he felt sorry for him - and when Mum wasn't around would engage Evan in friendly conversation or tell him what a good job he was doing with the repairs. Even Jan overcame his usual shyness and specific fear of Evan as a Jedi.

We were stting at the kitchen table one morning, Jan with his everpresent model battle droids and tanks and I as bored as ever, while Evan washed the breakfast dishes. Mum was in the next room.

Jan suddenly said, "Can you do magic?"

It took a moment for Evan to realize my brother was talking to him. He said, "What? No, of course not."

Jan set down his tanks and looked at the other seriously. "Yes you can," he retorted. "You're a Jedi. Mum said so. My teacher told me the Jedi could do all kinds of magic. What can you do? Can you read people's minds?"

"No, Jan, I cannot read minds. No Jedi can. That is a myth."

Jan looked disappointed. He went back to his toys; Evan went back to his dishes. He was putting them away when Mum walked in, and I happened to glance up.

It happened so quickly. He turned, and the plate was in his hand, and then suddenly it wasn't, and he snatched down to catch it; and at the same time Mum saw, and as his fingertips closed on the dish her hand closed on the collar remote; he was rising when she pressed the button, he was caught off guard, the plate slipped from his grasp and his hand jerked open in shock; but just before the plate hit the floor, it stopped and hovered for a millisecond before setting itself softly on the ground, as nicely as if an invisible hand had placed it there. Evan's face was screwed up in pain and - concentration, almost. Mum saw that. She also saw the plate lying unharmed on the kitchen floor. And right then I realised what had happened - I saw the suspicion in Mum's eyes, and I knew he was going to get it.

As if to confirm, Jan cried, "I knew it! That was magic, right there! You kept that plate from breaking!"

Mum's eyes went dark and hard, and she said, "That was very foolish, Evan. I told you you were not to practice your Jedi mischief in this house, and yet you have the audacity to disregard my wishes before my very eyes, and my children as well." She pressed the button on the remote, and Evan fell suddenly to his knees, gasping and shuddering. "Let that be a lesson to you," said Mum.

I was horrified. I jumped to my feet and cried, "Mum, no! He didn't do anything wrong! He was trying to do you a favour!"

"Hush your mouth, young lady!"

But I wasn't going to stand by while she mistreated him, after how patient and thoughtful he had been towards all of us. "No! Leave him alone!" And I grabbed for the remote. It was a bold thing to do, bolder than I had ever done perhaps - to stand up to Mum like that, who dominated our world - but I acted without thinking. What happened next... well, it marked a turning point in my relationship with my mother. She was taller than me by an inch or so, and stronger, for my growing had not yet finished. She held the controller away from me, though her finger was still on it, and with her free hand slapped me across the face. I gave a cry and fell back: Mum had never struck me before, not once in my fifteen years, and it shocked me.

Mum's face was a twisted vision of rage and vengeance - madness, almost - and she snarled, "Don't you EVER do that again, Annika," and, to show me the consequences of my actions, turned up the voltage of Evan's collar until I was sure she planned to kill him. I ran at her, shrieking, "Stop, Mum, no! Please!" and kept shouting and tugging at her arm, tears streaking from my eyes, even as she pressed the button. Evan's back arched so suddenly I could hear the crack of his skull on the floor; he jerked and flailed like a suffocating child, a dying spider. Where his hair touched the collar, it was recoiling with a foul-smelling hiss, singed. "Mum! Mum, please!" I wailed.

Then, I think, she realised what she was doing. Her face suddenly became horrified and she dropped the controller as if it were electrified as well. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry," she gasped, and with eyes wide and white gripped me to herself. She was trembling.


	6. Time Passes

When he awoke after perhaps thirty-six hours, Evan had a fiery burn around his neck from the collar and had to walk tenderly. Mum in her guilt said nothing to him for over a week, and after that was less demanding for a time; but after two months she had gone entirely back to her old ways. Jan, who witnessed the incident as well, would not go near Mum for at least as long as she avoided Evan, and she seemed humbled to have scared and traumatized her children so. Dad, too, treated her differently - something had changed between my parents, some trust or understanding had been broken, I don't know. But dinnertime was subdued those days. It was a long time before life got back to normal.

School had started up again by now, and each day I drove Jan into Mos Dega to the elementary school, then went on another forty minutes to the regional high school by myself. There was only a half-day of classes so that the students - most of whom lived as far away, or further, than I did - would be able to get home before dark. Most kids stopped going to school after elementary, but Mum and Dad had always been adamant that I get a good education, so I kept at it despite the inconvenience. Then I'd drive forty minutes back, pick up Jan and any groceries or tools or spare parts our parents needed, and get back in time for chores and a silent meal. Evan was always around, but since Mum's freak-out he'd become like a piece of scenery: never speaking, utterly inobtrusive, as though he were trying to melt into invisibility. I didn't blame him, frankly. But with school came friends and homework and other concerns - I had a life of my own to think about, and his and Jan's and my parents' became secondary concerns.

Zola joined us for dinner once or twice during that time, but he nor Evan mentioned what the doctor had taken from him. The bounty was not discussed. Time marched on until Evan had been with us almost a year, and then all hell broke loose.


	7. A Change of Situation

((PS All, the last chapter was so short, and this chapter is so short, because I am desperately stalling for time, because the story's not finished and I really don't want this one to end up like certain of my other stories, which I intend to complete but have been sitting without being updated for many months, and which I feel awful about... uh... yes... anyhow...))

It began when Tusken Raiders destroyed twelve of our outlying moisture collectors beyond repair. Dad was furious. For days afterwards he flew off at us for the tiniest offences - he scolded Evan and even argued with Mum in front of us (who herself had been snappish following the disaster). They had good reason for it, though - the equipment would cost over half a million credits to replace, far more than my parents could afford. Not to mention that the landspeeder had been on the verge of breaking down all year, kept working only thanks to our Jedi's mechanical prowess. And of course there were school fees, taxes, protection money to be paid our landlord... In short, our family was facing a financial crisis - one more accident like this one and we were through, bankrupt, might even lose the house. I knew all of this because I overheard my parents talking about it one night, six days after the Sandpeople's sabotage.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Dad said hopelessly, his voice muffled by their door.

Mum said, "There is one possibility..."

I tried not to worry - every farming family on Tatooine had the same problems, but we'd always managed to get by. This situation would be no different, I told myself. But I still felt the stress, even if I refused to adknowledge it. We all felt it. Things were building to a climax, and it came when the speeder broke down halfway between Mos Dega and the high school the following week. I caught a ride home with a friend, but the speeder had to be towed back, and no matter how Dad and Evan poked at it the engine refused to start again. My parents were very quiet that night.

It must have been around 1 or 2 am when I woke at a soft sound a few days later, and I, assuming it was Evan going to bed, as usual, took no notice. But then I heard a voice whispering my name. I sat bolt upright - but before I could cry out the person standing by my bed said, "Shh, Annika. It's Evan."

I stared, not knowing whether to be relieved or frightened. "What are you doing here?" I hissed. "Mum'll have a fit if she catches you..."

"I need you to help me," he confessed. "I didn't want to have to involve you, but I've run out of time and now it seems I have no choice. Your parents have been talking for some time now about... replacing me. For a long while your father managed to convince your mother to keep me on a bit longer, but now - in light of the moisture collecters, and the speeder - I think he's changed his mind. They've decided to give me over to the Empire, and I can't wait here until Vader arrives. I'm going to escape tonight, Annika - but I need the keys to this collar, and I can't get near them - there's a forcefield around the drawer that kicks me back every time I try to open it - it's programmed to repel the collar, you see... so I need you to get the keys for me. I'm very sorry to have to ask you this, but I- They'll kill me, if I don't run away, and you're the only one I can go to..." He really did sound desperate. I remembered what he had said about having to stay alive to tell the world about his murdered family, and how quick he had been to forgive me, and I remembered him twitching on the floor after Mum electrocuted him. I knew how enraged my parents would be once they found out, but I didn't care. Evan was my friend. I wasn't going to let him die.

"Okay," I said. "Wait here." Quietly I got out of bed and walked down the hall to the kitchen. I went to the drawer, took out the keys and put them in my pocket, then got myself a glass of water to cover my reason for getting up in the middle of the night and took the glass back to my room. Then I unlocked Evan's slave collar.

"Thank you," he said - he sounded as though he might weep for gratitude. "You have been - like a daughter to me. I will remember you always." And then he was gone.


	8. Everything Goes to Hell

I went back down the hall, returned the keys to their drawer, hid the collar in the refrigerator under a bag of fishnuts, downed my water, put the glass in the sink-

KABAMM!! B-BAM-BAM-B-B-BAM!

I screamed and threw myself to the ground as blinding light suddenly flooded the house and gunfire tore through the wall or the roof or the windows - in the other room Jan was also screaming, and Mum and Dad both shouting wildly. Men in blaster armor burst into the door, sweeping the room with searchlights and guns; one of them ran over and hauled me to my feet and out the door. Others soon followed with my brother and my parents. Mum was saying, "There has to be some kind of mistake!" over the din of blaster fire and gunship engines. Doctor Zola, of all people, appeared out of the crowd of soldiers and ran over. With him was an Imperial officer of some kind - high ranking, it looked. He wasn't very old and seemed to be compensating for his age with belligerency.

"Are you Mr and Mrs Rand?" he bellowed.

"Yes," said Mum.

"You said you had a Jedi in your custody!"

"Yes!"

"Well, where is he?!"

It was at that point that my parents looked around and realised that Evan was missing. Mum looked as though she might faint - or kill someone. She did neither.

"Is he still in the house?" Dad suggested.

The young captain looked to his soldiers. One of them came hurrying forward and shouted, "Perimeter secure, sir! No one in the building!"

For some reason everyone turned to Zola. The doctor was taken aback, and maybe a little frightened. "Why are you looking at me?" he cried defensively. Then they looked at me.

"Why are you looking at _me_?" I repeated, but my voice must have wavered a little. Mum gripped my arm painfully hard and shrieked, "Annika! Where is Evan?"

"I don't know!" Which was true. He could be anywhere by now. But Mum didn't seem to believe me. She gave me a rough shake and screamed, "Don't _lie_, Annika! Where _is_ he?!" She really was scared, I could see it in her face, and I knew why. If Evan wasn't found the Empire would likely accuse us of tricking them - in which case my parents would be fined such a high price that it would likely bankrupt us - or worse, of conspiring with him, of aiding and abetting his escape, which was most often punishable by death. Thinking of this, I stared back at my mother, mute with fear, as the gunships roared over us running circles around our home in search of their quarry, and stammered incoherent variations on the answer I'd already given.

The imperial captain too looked as if he were panicking. If he failed to capture a Jedi fugitive, he would have to answer to Lord Vader personally; I had heard stories, and if I had been in his position I would have panicked also. His eyes flitted one way and then another, as though he were uncertain what to do. Then suddenly he grabbed me, pressed a blaster pistol to my ear, and dragged me up to the summit of the nearest dune. My mother screamed and tried to follow, but Dad dug his fingers into her arm and held her back, his other hand on Jan's trembling neck. My heart had flown into my throat – could it be the young officer had figured out what had happened? Would he kill me? A thousand unreasoned theories popped into my head at once.

At the top of the rise the captain turned to face the dark rolling sandhills and shouted, "We know you're out there, Jedi! Show yourself!" I shifted a little in the man's grasp and he tightened his grip. "Listen, Jedi! Either you allow yourself to be taken into custody or we're going to execute this entire family, starting with the girl! You got it? SHOW YOURSELF OR I WILL KILL HER!"

I was terrified. I was certain Evan had gotten far out of hearing range by now, and even if he _could_ hear the imperial officer's desperate ultimatum, what was to bring him back? Of course I know, in retrospect, that I should never have doubted him – after all, Evan was both a friend and a good man, and he would not allow us to die if he could prevent it – but I wasn't thinking clearly. I was sure I was living out my last minutes on Tatooine, expecting the blaster to explode my skull at any moment. The captain was hurting my arm, he was holding it so fiercely.

And then suddenly one of the white-armored soldiers shouted, "There, sir!" Both my captor and I followed his pointing hand to a single distant figure walking with raised hands towards the house.

Evan. I strangled a scream.


	9. Goodbye

Immediately the imperial troops swarmed over him; the officer dropped me and ran to join them, and I ran after him. I slipped in the sand, tumbled down the dune; my parents embraced me at its base and helped me to my feet – and held me back from Evan as the soldiers struck him and shouted insults at him and put his hands in binders. I tried to push past them, to get to him, but Dad held me back, and then Evan had been pushed into one of the gunships and it had taken off and vanished into the sky.

The young officer came over to us and curtly apologized for his rough treatment of me. He said that the reward money would be put in a special account for my parents. "You've done the Empire a great service today, Mr and Mrs Rand," he told them.

We moved to Coruscant a few months later. Dad was made the Hutts' ambassador to the Empire, Mum became a socialite, Jan and I were put into good private schools. We had a fine high-rise apartment with a balcony. By Coruscant standards we were middle class - by Tatooine standards we were royalty - but I could find no happiness in it. I could think only of Evan, who had given his life to save us, and as soon as I completed my education I enrolled in a small and unprestigious university on some backwater world - I don't remember which one, since I never actually went there and only enrolled in the school as a cover - and joined the Rebellion. By fighting the Empire, I hoped I might be able in some part to avenge Evan's death. I would repay him - I would tell the galaxy what had happened to his family. Someday, I decided, people would know.


	10. Epilogue

_Before you read, check this out (minus the spaces, of course): _the - first - magelord . deviant art . com / art / Jedi - Remnant - 126660775

* * *

"What's that tattoo?"

It was a crowded bar, especially this late at night. Music blared from the stage, where thinly-clad holographic Twi'leks danced; droids buzzed over the packed patrons' heads ferrying drinks. Fifty different languages spilled over the throng from every direction, enhanced by alcohol, ignored by the laughing, shouting sentients who generated the noise. Yet, even over this insurmountable commotion, the blind man heard the question, and knew it directed at himself. The one who asked was young, rash, hedonistic. She inquired only to make conversation, because she was bored and slightly tipsy and a tiny bit curious. But perhaps, he mused, he could use this opportunity - to educate, maybe. Or something deeper.

"It is the mark of a survivor," he said.

"What? I can't hear you over this crowd!"

"Come closer," he told her. "I can't shout."

The girl moved clumsily to the seat next to his, squeezing her way between barflies with mumbled pardons and awkward giggles. When she had thunked herself onto the neighbouring stool and repeated her question, the blind man again told her what his tattoo meant. She furrowed her brow and made a face. "A survivor? Of, like, an earthquake or a war or something?"

He sighed. She was more drunk than he'd thought. "Have you ever heard of the Jedi Order?" he asked softly.

"Well, sure! Like Luke Skywalker."

"The Jedi existed long before Luke Skywalker," he said, bemused. "Since the days of the Old Republic - and indeed before! - the Jedi have striven to ensure that peace and justice are maintained throughout the galaxy. They have been its protectors since before history can recall."

"That's cool. So, are you, like, one of 'm?" She was distracted; she'd spotted an attractive male among the sweaty bodies on the dance floor and was trying to devise some excuse to go up and talk to him. The blind man shook his head. He'd overestimated himself again.

When he didn't answer, the girl turned to him and said, "Well? So are you a Jedi or what?"

"I was, once."

"So what does that have to do with being a survivor? What are you, like, a thousand years old or something?" She giggled at the thought.

"Hardly," he laughed. "Did you learn nothing of Order 66 in your childhood history classes? ...But of course not, you would have been raised under the Empire, and in its later years no less." He sighed again. "When I was a little older than you Darth Vader and his servants _killed_ the Jedi - every one of us they could find. They couldn't get to me, so they killed my family instead. I wear this tattoo in memory of everyone the Empire destroyed, Jedi or not. I wear this tattoo because I survived."

A pause.

"Wow, cool. Hey, so, I'm gonna go check out this guy over on the dance floor, but really cool story! Maybe I'll catch you later, Jedi dude!"

Then she was gone. The blind man sighed a third time and flexed his fingers - robotic prosthetics, the originals having been removed with care and precision, piece by piece, by the Emperor's torturers. His eyes they had seared until only a burnt rind remained, opaque and useless, and his legs they had crippled, so that only with the aid of mechanical implants and durasteel braces could he still walk. Had Annika not rescued him when she did, Evan would have become one with the force long ago.

Yes, his body had survived, if only barely. But the best part of him, he knew, had died in the months following Order 66: his wife, his daughter, his unborn child. Whatever still remained of who he had been before pain and loss transformed him had vaporized with Alderaan; and though Evan Sorec wore the mark of a survivor, he hadn't really made it into the New Republic alive. The tattoo... Gently he touched it: a winged star, stained with the blood of the fallen, emblazoned on the back of his neck like a slaver's brand. Some wore it as a badge of honor, some as a memorial, some for bragging rights. Evan had gotten his for none of these reasons. His was a reminder of what he had been - of what he had become. ...Of how things might have been different, in another timeline.

The girl was dancing now, frenetically. The boy she'd chosen was attracted to her strongly enough that Evan could feel the connection building between the young people, vibrating like soundwaves through the Force. He'd become closely attuned to little things such as this by now; seeing by the Force alone had that advantage.

Gingerly he stood, hydraulic fluid ticking and hissing in his joints. Time to go home. Tomorrow he'd return and wait patiently for some naive youngster to ask about his symbol, or his scars, or his mechanical hands - and maybe this time they'd listen. Maybe they wouldn't. But he'd be back here just the same.


End file.
